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The title of this is intentional. ---- He stumbled from his body and landed flat on the floor, but he felt nothing. Standing back up, he realized he was nothing more than a spectral form observing what used to be him. A crippled body in the hospital bed, breathing only through the respiration mechanism filtering through his lungs. It wasn't enough to save him. He was dead. The sound of an opening door, and footsteps. He turned around, and a shady man approached him. He was wearing, of course, an old black robe which hid his face. Bright light seemed to be concealed beneath the hood. "Are you... Death?" he asked in awe. The figure nodded. His very presence bathed the room in a dim light which shined out from the holes in his robe. The man stepped back and shook his head in denial. "I can't go yet," he insisted, "I have so much left." Death tilted his head wonderingly. His skeletal mouth stretched open, making a cracking sound. "But you have nothing," he croaked, "No family. No children. No home. No car, money, food. The life you think you have doesn't even exist. You humans are all the same. Greedy to live. You don't know what you have until it's gone..." The man sat upon the hospital bed and pondered Death's words. He did, indeed, have something. "I have hope. I have love to give to others, even if they have none for me," the man stammered. "You've had everything taken away from you," began Death, "and you still want to live? Return to true misery? I'll never understand you humans. I was the first man to live, and I was content when my time came. Why can't you be? Why can't any other human be?" The man's thoughts became distracted by the notion of "the first man." "You were the first man alive? So, you're... Adam?" he asked hesitantly. Death bellowed a deep laugh, and more light shined out from under his hood. "No, fool. Don't think that your Christianity is right." Death paused for a moment, "What I should say is that every religion is right in its own little way. Do you see what I mean?" The man shrugged indecisively. Death took a step back and held out his hands. A flower appeared in each one. A daisy, and a rose. "Look here. See these? They're different. But that does not mean that they are not both flowers," Death explained, "Look at religion the same way. Hundreds, thousands of different beliefs. But they are still one in the same, and so are their followers." "You mean to say... that every religion is right about their beliefs?" the man inquired further curiously. "In a sense." Death shrugged. "But that's not all I wanted you to think about. Life and death. Are they not the same? You cannot say for certain because you have yet to experience death's release of earthly chains. But they are the same. Two realms of existence, with a plethora of defining traits, differing from each other; even so, they are exactly the same. Neither worse, nor better, than the other. Freedom is rife in both realms, if one chooses to enact it for themselves. You humans, in life, have made the mistake of interrupting what naturally belongs to you. Your freedom is little, but it still lives. Life and death are no different, is what I am conveying to you, human." The man stood up and looked down at the ground. Death sighed a cold, patient breath. "I'm ready to go now," the man finally agreed. Death put his hand on the man's shoulder understandingly. It wasn't cold, like the man expected. Rather, neutral. Neither scolding nor frigid. Death was the in-between. "I'm sorry," said Death, "it is a loss, but also a gain. Come with me." Death released his hand from the man's shoulder and turned around, and a door appeared out of thin air. It was simply nondescript white, with a black knob. The door opened as Death touched it, and bright energy shined out. The man, now enlightened by Death's arcane knowledge, followed without question. He had accepted the inevitable, and in that moment he realized that he was likely not the first to have initially rejected the truth of the mere concept of equality and simplicity. Death is the wisdom in life, ironically only spreading his wisdom in the last moments of mortality and physical existence. Category:ManraptorHurrr's Content Category:Stories Category:Fiction Category:Original Content Category:Sadness